My Favorite Christian Hip Hop Albums of 2017

As you might have guessed, I’ve taken a bit of a sabbatical from blogging to take care of some personal stuff but figured I could dip my toes back in the water to share some of my favorite Christian hip hop releases from 2017.

While we’re still enduring a heavy trap phase (or what I described to Brinson as “whooping rap”) that I’m not a huge fan of – there were several albums that garnered a lot of replay value for me over the last 365 days.

I’ll briefly describe them below but will give the standard caveat that I haven’t/can’t/won’t be able to listen to everything that gets released so there are bound to be titles I’ve left off or overlooked here. It’s not an intentional slight, it’s just a matter of balancing the practicality of consuming as much music as I’d like with the realities of everyday life as a responsible adult.

Without further adieu:

1) Deespace 5 – 5:55

The deepspace5 crew has long been one of my faves, but because it’s a collective made up of individual emcees and producers, there can often be long stretches of time between group releases as each guy pursues his own solo career. As such, I was very excited to hear they would be dropping a new project in 2017 to celebrate their second decade as a crew.

What I didn’t expect was that it would be a reimaging/tribute/remix of Jay-Z’s fantastic 4:44 confessional from earlier this year. Here, producer Freddie Bruno takes some of the same samples from that album and creates his own version of five (naturally) tracks from Jay’s project.

The result is a fantastic example of innovation, a pure love for hip hop, and a mesh of top notch lyricists who openly share their Christian faith in their rhymes.

This is a great project to share with non-believers who are familiar with Jay’s work but may not know about ds5. Pay what you want on Bandcamp and allow the brilliance to wash over you in celebration.

I’m a hip hop head through and through but have to admit the pop synth stuff is growing on me. We knew Gawvi could create banging beats for rap songs, and showed promise in this realm with the Hue EPs, but We Belong exceeded my expectations.

It’s fun, intimate, and relatable with topics that range from temptation to devotion on both earthly and spiritual planes. Selena would’ve loved this!

Beautiful Eulogy’s brand of “folk hip hop” isn’t for everyone. While many can (and should) appreciate their craft, it’s often too left field to be broadly accessible. But Worthy hits a different level with more singable choruses and deeply theological raps that properly position the listener to worship their worthy Creator. I got a lot of spins and ministry out of this release.

This project delivered exactly as promised – an album that showed Christians know how to have fun when they rap. Its throwback basketball theme and marketing (did you see that retro-caricature tee?!?) immediately hooked me and the music did not disappoint. Aside from the corny (and immediately skippable) comedy skits, this collection has plenty of high-energy cuts that put you in a good mood and ready for a game of hoops.

Aside from the controversy and conversations started by the album’s promotion and initial singles (“Random Thoughts Part 3” and “Ichabod”), the project stands on its own simply as a solid rap album. Once again, shai reminds us that his mission is Still Jesus and lays out the reasons why he believes his emcee brethren should chart a similar course. You don’t have to always agree with shai, but you have to respect him.